


A Spell Like None Other

by aspeninthesunlight



Series: Side Stories for A Year Like None Other [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Author self-insertion, Gen, Parody, Self-Insert, The Author Regrets Nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-03
Updated: 2004-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:27:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23536771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aspeninthesunlight/pseuds/aspeninthesunlight
Summary: Sometimes, life deals you a lousy hand. True heroes, however, persevere.A parody of what happens at a certain fanfiction site.
Series: Side Stories for A Year Like None Other [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1672093
Comments: 1
Kudos: 19





	A Spell Like None Other

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Year Like None Other](https://archiveofourown.org/works/742072) by [aspeninthesunlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aspeninthesunlight/pseuds/aspeninthesunlight). 



> Once upon a time, _A Year Like None Other_ was posted at ff.net. It was getting a lot of attention and loads of people seemed to like it. I was having a blast writing, posting, and interacting with readers.
> 
> Then one day, I woke up to find 800 emails from panicked readers in my gmail. By the end of the day, there were 1,500. People were freaking out because they couldn't find the fic -- ff.net had removed it. I was replying to people left and right that I didn't know what had happened -- and then finally, somewhere in the deluge, I found an email from ffnet announcing that my fic had been removed for having explicit content. Which it doesn't. As you know! 
> 
> I appealed and appealed to no avail. I begged them to make the person who had reported it prove the charge -- point to the supposed explicit text! But ff.net didn't appear to care at all that the charge hadn't been proved. It seemed like their complaint process was: receive complaint, believe complaint, remove story. With absolutely no attempt to verify said complaint.
> 
> Eventually I gave up and started posting the story elsewhere. But I was frustrated about the situation, and I wrote this little parody fic to work out my frustration. 
> 
> Funny epilogue: I posted THIS fic, _A Spell Like None Other_ on ffnet as well, and within days, there was a complaint against it too! This time, it was removed without any chance of appeal for being a songfic. Which it isn't! Sigh. But ffnet told me that I now had two strikes and my account would be removed on the third strike. I concluded that the only way to keep my account alive on ff.net was to never post any fic there, ever again. And I wanted my account to stay live -- I wanted people to be able to find my profile and hopefully follow me to other sites. 
> 
> To this day, I believe that some online nemesis of mine put in the complaints, just to mess with me. I don't know who would have hated me that much, alas.

_A Spell Like None Other_

Harry was feeling decidedly chipper and upbeat when he opened his owl post that morning. True, the new spell he'd been laboring over was a lot of work, especially since he was expanding it and improving on it every week. However, the whole effort was a labor of love, so he wasn't about to complain. Just about everybody he knew had told him that they loved the spell, and what was more, he was getting loads and loads of owl post from strangers too, raving over how wonderful the spell was and how eagerly they awaited new updates to it. Harry had a lot of new owl-post-friends as a result of his spell. That was awfully nice.

When he'd first invented the spell, he hadn't known what to call it, so he'd named it _A Spell Like None Other._ After all this time working on it, though, it was very dear to his heart.

All of which meant that when he opened one particular letter, his heart just about sank into his toes. The wording of the letter was terse and to the point. Rude, in fact, but that wasn't what distressed Harry. It was what the words meant. Could this be right? They couldn't be serious, could they? He'd never heard of something so bizarre in all his life!

> Harry Potter,
> 
> Spell: "A Spell Like None Other"  
>  Summary: "A nice Latin incantation to make you walk a path like none you've seen before: strewn with beautiful, blooming flowers. This spell contains brotherly love, forgiveness, and a wholesome all-around family feeling. Warning: some flowers bear thorns, which if you think about it, is only natural. Life and love are like that, right?"  
>  Rating: "Easily cast by wizards over the age of 13."
> 
> Main reason for removal: "Explicit content or adult content above current rating"
> 
> The above spell has been removed because it violated the guideline established by ww.net.
> 
> This infraction has been recorded and once you reach a certain limit, your wand will be automatically banned. Moreover, as a result of this infraction, you will not have spell access for a period of time.

Harry wrinkled his forehead and read the letter through again. Even then, he wasn't quite sure what it all meant. Explicit content? What were they talking about? He knew about ww.net, of course. They were called the spell police by a lot of his friends. An awful lot of his friends refused to even notify ww.net of their new spells, because they'd heard of things like this happening to perfectly innocent wizards. Harry had gone ahead and shared his spell with ww.net because he wanted wizards all over the world to know about it and be able to make flowers bloom. But now he was wondering if he'd made a mistake, letting ww.net be the one to host information about his beautiful spell.

The people at ww.net didn't like his spell? Of course, he'd heard that the wizards over at ww.net weren't always quite rational, so he figured it had to be a mistake. Nobody could seriously think that a spell to make flowers blossom was harmful in any way, could they? Or only for adults? Harry felt really confused.

He did the only thing he could think of to do, in the circumstances. Drawing his wand, he prepared to cast _A Spell Like None Other_ , right there in the Great Hall. Some flowers on the table would be nice, he thought.

But to his absolute horror and dismay, nothing happened. Nothing at all.

The above spell has been removed.... Oh dear, it had been removed from his wand, and from everyone else's who had been enjoying the spell so much. How could they do this? It was awful, just awful.

Ron glanced up from his bowl of honeyed porridge. "How come you didn't get any flowers that time?"

Harry didn't even know how to explain! Before he had to, though, a flurry of owls deluged the Great Hall, all of them headed right for Harry. "Hey!" he yelled as hundreds of letters fell on his head, his lap, his breakfast...

"What is going on here?" demanded Snape as he strode from the teachers' table toward the hubbub.

"I don't know, sir," Harry said, desperately unhappy. "I got this one owl post from ww.net, and then all these others just came... How am I going to read them all? Or reply? I don't even know what this is all about, really."

"Hmmph," Snape pronounced in dreadful tones as he snatched the letter Harry was tentatively extending. After a moment of reading, he chuckled deep in his throat. "I see. So our pure Golden Gryffindor hero has been inventing nasty spells and posting them on a public wizarding forum? Tsk, tsk, Potter. Such naughty behavior."

"But it isn't true, sir," Harry cried. Everyone at the table had heard him, and he didn't want all his friends to think these allegations were fact. "It isn't a nasty spell! Everybody here has seen it, even. We all know it isn't nasty in the least!"

"Ww.net says it is," Snape countered that, a smirk on his dark features.

"But they can't," Harry said, raising his voice. "I mean, they can't possibly! All you'd have to do is just cast it once, and you'd know it's a family-friendly spell. Really, sir, it's meant to promote love--"

Snape's smirk only grew wider.

"Not that kind of love!" Harry shouted. "Family love. Forgiveness. Hope. Listen, let me just show you--"

But he couldn't. The spell didn't work any longer. It didn't exist, not as far as ww.net was concerned.

"That's quite enough out of you, Potter," Snape snapped. "I've no wish to see your dirty little spell, and as this owl post clearly states, you're not to cast anything for two weeks."

"All I did was make the flowers bloom!"

"So says you. Ww.net says differently."

Hermione spoke up, then. "Honestly, Harry, why did you ever post your spell with them, anyway? I told you how irresponsible they were. If you read their Terms of Service you'd see they have reserved to themselves every right to remove your spell from existence."

"I thought I could trust them," Harry said sadly.

"Gryffindor," Snape accused, before smirking one last time and walking away.

That got Harry's ire up. "I never dreamed they'd remove _A Spell Like None Other_ unless they had a good reason!" He turned to Hermione. "What do you think even made them believe it was... not so nice?"

It was Ron who figured it out. "Jealousy, mate," he answered, shoving his food away as he gestured at Snape's retreating back. "People like him couldn't make the flowers bloom no matter how they tried. So they lodge a complaint, claim your spell is bad when it is nothing but. People like him mess it up for people like us."

"And deprive the rest of us of beautiful flowers," Hermione added. By then she had tried to cast _A Spell Like None Other_ , herself, and had no luck. The spell was gone, completely gone.

"Why should wizards like those at ww.net get to control my beautiful spell?" Harry fumed.

"Only because you posted it with them," Hermione explained. "But you can post it somewhere else. Go back to your notes and recreate it, Harry. And next time, share your beautiful creation with people who will appreciate it. There are plenty of us, after all."

Harry smiled. "I'll do that." Then he looked down at his post. "All right, time to get cracking with this lot."

"We'll help," his friends said, and for the rest of the day, they steadily explained to all the fans of _A Spell Like None Other_ just what had happened and what they were going to do about it.

\----

fin

Comments very welcome,

Aspen


End file.
